Report That Refugee Children Will Be Held As Hostages Considered Nazi Propaganda

The Nazi report that the French Government has held up issuing exit visas to refugee children because of “inimical propaganda” conducted against France and Germany in the United States could not be confirmed at the State Department today. Officials here knew of no new difficulty in the negotiations for the transfer of the children to the United States.

It was pointed out here that the German report is probably just a Nazi propaganda scheme. The United Nations, it was declared, could hardly be expected to stop telling the world our story of the war in return for permission to relieve the consequences of a single Nazi crime. The State Department has emphasized that the children were left destitute in the first place by the deportation of their parents to Germany. The opinion prevailing here is that both the French Government and the Nazis are, at least, as anxious to be rid of the refugee children as this country is to have them.